Ranchi, Sept. 29: Sick of outdated and tattered books stacked in ill-maintained libraries? Cheer up. The state is now planning a digital book bank that will be connected with all the libraries in the state through Internet.

The digital library will be available at all universities, colleges, schools and public libraries.

The students would also get an opportunity to have a digital library reading room, for which every library of the state would be inter-linked, thereby, helping the readers to search for old articles, journals and authors with a click of the mouse.

The above initiative has been taken by the Jharkhand Information and Library Association, for which they have got an approval from the state HRD department.

Ahmedabad-based nodal agency, INFLINBNET Centre would provide free software to digitalise the libraries in the state. Software for Open University Library (SOUL), which is meant for the state-of-the-art university libraries, would be used for automation.

The project, which is estimated to cost crores, will be completed in two phases.

In the first phase, the association has decided to digitalise libraries in educational institutions such as Birsa Agriculture University (BAU) with a storing capacity of 2 lakh, Ranchi University, which has 1.5 lakh books in its library and the BIT Mesra library that houses 2 lakh books.

The second phase would cover 18 state libraries and the libraries of schools and colleges also.

Shiva Prakash, the secretary of Jharkhand Information and Library Association said they had got the nod from the state HRD department to go ahead with the proposal 15 days ago. “It will almost take two to three years to complete the project for which we have approached BAU, BIT Mesra and Ranchi University to raise appropriate funds,” added the secretary.

Digitalisation of the libraries would also help preserve manuscripts and books that have gone out of print, Prakash added. “The project for the automation of library is done under the programme titled national knowledge commission, which aims to connect the libraries to villages through Internet,” the secretary pointed out.

The association has submitted a proposal to the state HRD department to pass the public library act. “Every state has this act, but our state is yet to enact this,” he said.

The secretary said that they have decided to have public libraries for children and elderly residents. Besides, they are planning to have a mobile library and a reading room.

“We lag behind in infrastructure as compared to other states. Only the condition of the city-based public library is satisfactory,” the secretary said.

State HRD minister Bandhu Tirkey, who gave the nod to the proposal, said he would pass the bill soon for smooth functioning of the libraries.